book cover

Curing Health Care

New Strategies For Quality Improvement

By Donald M. Berwick, A. Blanton Godfrey, and Jane Roessner

Published by Jossey-Bass, Inc.
Publication date: 1990
287 pp.
ISBN: 1555422942 (hard cover)

Synopsis

This book is a report on the National Demonstration Project On Quality Improvement In Health Care, a U.S. effort to apply modern methods of total quality management (TQM) to health care. Using the reports of National Demonstration Project Teams, it illustrates the entire quality improvement process -- from defining the problem through implementing a solution and consolidating the project's gains.

Curing Health Care demonstrates what works and does not work in actual practice, presenting case examples of specific health care improvement projects ranging from transport of critically ill infants to quick turnaround of emergency lab specimens and the generation of accurate Medicare bills.

The authors distill their findings into ten key lessons, revealing, for example, the importance of senior management support for quality improvement projects. They stress the need to bring physicians directly into the quality improvement process and explore its potential for stimulating dramatic improvements in clinical practice.

The book also includes a primer on quality improvement tools and a discussion of the implications of the National Demonstration Project for strategic quality management in medical settings.

Foreword by Joseph M. Juran
Preface
The Authors
1. Symptoms Of Stress In The Health Care System
2. Applying Quality Management To Health Care
3. Foundations Of Quality Management
4. Using The Scientific Method To Define Problems
5. Organizing Quality Improvement Teams
6. The Diagnostic Journey
7. Implementing Successful Remedies
8. Holding And Extending The Gains
9. Ten Key Lessons For Quality Improvement
Afterword: Reflections On The Future by David A. Garvin
Resource A: Participants In The National Demonstration Project
Resource B: A Primer On Quality Improvement Tools by Paul E. Plsek
Resource C: Three Project Reports
Resource D: Key Readings In Quality Improvement
Index

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Curing Health Care

New Strategies For Quality Improvement

Synopsis

Table of Contents